


Destroyers

by QueenBLE



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Romance, Unresolved Sexual Tension, ichabbie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-04 07:39:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5326082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenBLE/pseuds/QueenBLE
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crane tries to get Abbie to open up to him after her ordeal in Hell, but she knows something he does not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cautious

**Author's Note:**

> Post s3 midseason hiatus, after Crane saves Abbie. More to come!

He found her on the porch swing that morning. She was dressed appropriately enough for the chill, but still cold and quiet. She had had not warmed since he had dragged her from hell and breathed life into her, shamelessly, recklessly kissing her face and hands as she became responsive. 

They hadn’t talked about that. Now they were back to barely touching. 

She watched him sit in the rocking chair across from her. He had been treating her like she was breakable—and she had to admit, that’s how she looked. It had been days, but still when she looked in the mirror she saw only a shade of what she was before. A tired and lonely shade. 

“We have not discussed your ordeal,” Crane murmured cautiously. “If I knew, perhaps I could assist you.”

“It’s fine, Crane.” She hated that she was so transparent. She turned her head and glanced at him. “You looking for some praise?”

“Of course not—I only—“ but he stopped as he saw a shadow of her sly, teasing grin dance across her face. It filled him with joy. He felt an opening between them. Finally the distance seemed breachable. 

“Lieutenant, I must ask. Do you remember anything? From the other side?”

Abbie froze again--her expression, her eyes, her entire body. She remembered the warnings. The taunts. The promises. All the things that convinced her to stay there in the darkness, where she could hurt no one. But then he had come, and she let him drag her out. She turned to him and looked into his eyes. 

He stared back with as much fortitude as he could muster, determined to hold her gaze, to show her the safety in his heart. She saw it. She deflected. 

“Sure. Dirty river. Overcast.”

“A burden shared is a burden halved.”

“It’s not a big deal. It’s… like the memory of a nightmare.” She waved her hand flippantly. She lied. She hoped he didn’t see right though it. 

He saw right through it. She shivered and he stood to find her a blanket. He crossed to the porch swing and wrapped it around her, sitting beside her. He took too long to remove his encircling arms. 

She could feel him thinking. Planning. She thought and planned nothing. It was amazing how quickly she had abandoned the concept of “a future”. From the moment she walked into that tree, she stopped believing in futures. Her return to Earth had not restored that. 

And as usual, he knew. Just knew. He carefully took her wrist and laid her small brown palm against his large white one. She steeled herself for a life/death pep talk—that was when their hands touched. When he needed to justify his purpose again. 

“Two very different hands. They should never have touched, they are so disparate—in size, color, century, experience,” Crane began. Abbie looked at their hands. She could feel their callouses rub against each other and wished he would get to the point. 

“And yet. Here they are.” He threaded their fingers together, skimming his thumb over the back of her hand. He heard her sharp intake of breath, surprised at this unusual lingering contact. He hesitated, lest she pull away. 

But she didn’t. She waited for the rest of his speech. 

“Two hands, coming together against all odds, to walk into and out of hell together.” He continued to skim his thumb against her hand. She continued to not flee. 

“And through this life together.”

He was looking at her, calm, like a battle in his heart had ended. Abbie knew what was happening. She had seen this look flash in his eyes before, when he tried to hide it. Hell had mocked them and their childish dance around the subject. Their wasted time. Their inevitability.

Meeting his eyes would be a confession. It would be a tether between her and the Earth that was no longer hers. Hell had promised destruction would come from this. She didn’t want to be a Destroyer. 

They were too close now, his face just inches from hers. She looked up into his burning, devastating eyes. A small tilt of the chin to match his gaze and he nearly melted with relief. He moved close to her, holding her eyes with his. She trembled.

Because Crane was right. Hell was right. They were together—in death, out of death, and for all their lives. 

“Do you remember what happened immediately after you returned to the living?”

She remembered Crane’s face appearing, suddenly, after an infinite darkness. “No,” she answered.

Crane touched his fingers to her chin and jaw, guiding her to him. 

“Allow me to remind you.”

She must hold him back. Destroyers. Prophesied to end life as they know it, just to be able to love each other. Kissing would clearly be selfish. But hand holding in silence? Not so clear.

Abbie’s head turned. Every part of Crane tightened, her rejection like a bucket of cold water he had been braced for since they met. What would he do with all this love if she would not take it? If she did not want him, what use was he? And yet.

She moved no further. Legs touching, hands intertwined, Crane’s breath stirring her hair. She did not want him to move forward, but she did not want him to move away. 

So he kept completely still. And they stayed like that for some time.


	2. Abbie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abbie remembers the other side.

A phone call from Jenny separated them. Jenny, whose voice was filled, had always been filled, with a defiant kindness and warmth. Jenny, for whom Abbie would give up anything. Jenny, who wanted to meet for breakfast. 

Abbie stood in front of her bathroom mirror, running hot water over her hands and staring at her ghostly reflection. She wondered how she would get rid of this dullness that had settled on her skin. She wondered what she was going to do about Crane. 

She hadn’t asked Crane what happened to him. She didn’t know that he had waited thirty-two minutes to go after her—long enough to collect Jenny and Joe and watch them fall asleep in each other’s arms on Abbie’s couch. Then he marched out of her house alone.

Abbie didn’t ask because she didn’t want to know. They shouldn’t have done this to each other. Loved each other so nobly, so fiercely that it could thwart the gods, reverse death—and destroy the world, no doubt. 

Her last thought as the stone’s power had overtaken her was of her mother. Corbin. Grace, her ancestor. Maybe they would be waiting for her. Maybe she could rest. 

Her first thought as she opened her eyes on the other side was of Crane. What would he say about this endless field, the fog, the lights above her? Would he look to her to lead the way? Would he reach for her hand as she reached for his?

And her mother had come, her face transformed by a peace the world had never granted her. Corbin had come, eyes twinkling but clear of all the secrets he had kept from her when he lived. And they held her and told her they were proud. 

Then Grace had come, unchanged. Charged with wisdom and counsel in this realm as she had been before. Abbie knew that Grace had come to lead her away from this quiet, warm place. She considered struggling. 

“He can’t find you here, my child. If you stay here, he will lose himself searching for you, and the world will lose its way for lack of you both. You must go.”

Abbie knew, as Grace knew, that there was no choice. She fell from heaven into a dark, swirling, angry pit where she could no longer see herself. She heard voices prophesizing awful, terrible things. They knew everything: who she loved most, how she loved them, her every thought, her every fear. They told her she was right to be afraid. 

Her love ruined her, they said. It ruined everyone. It would ruin the world. Crane would watch the world burn for her, they said. They were made to have each other and destroy all. 

And she could not protest, for here there were no lies, no flesh to protect and conceal her, nothing to distract her. She could only listen. She listened so well that she heard Crane enter the darkness with her. His heated, proud, living soul throwing the bitter and forgotten ones into a panic. She wanted to move away but he found her so quickly. Had she called out to him?

And then she was forced into a tiny prison, suffocated, blind—it was her own body, and it weighed a thousand pounds. She had to remember how to breathe, and Crane was kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her mouth, her eyelids, and she clung to him because she had forgotten how to pretend she didn’t love him. 

Abbie had forgotten then and couldn’t remember now. She washed her face. She combed her hair. She even tried some make-up. She still couldn’t remember. 

Crane was waiting for her when she left the bathroom. He held her hand as she drove them to the archives to meet Jenny. He watched her as he slowly twirled their thumbs together. He couldn’t remember how to disguise his love for her. To be fair, he was never very good at it, but now not even his pride could shield him. 

Things were looking bad. She just needed to find a way to protect the world from them. 

Abbie folded her fingers through Crane’s. She had to work fast.


	3. Kissed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crane makes himself clear.

The book was out of her reach, and it was too dark anyway—she had never seen the archives so dark. 

“Crane, can you give me a hand?”

She could hear him react instantly to her voice, crossing the room with barely hidden urgency and behind her in a flash. He touched her shoulder as he followed her hand to the correct shelf.

He surrounded her, pinning her against the bookshelf as he pulled the book down. She could feel his heat on her back and her neck. He didn’t move, step back, excuse himself, as he would have before, when she had her defenses and will power. 

She turned to face him, trying to make her face hard and inscrutable. He only saw its beauty. 

“What is it, Crane?”

“I missed you. Very much.”

“I’m back now,” she said casually. This casualness would get easier, she just needed to practice, she told herself. 

He placed the book on a lower shelf, his free hand fluttering with a moment of indecision. Just a moment. Then he held her face, tilting it up to his own, his thumb skimming her cheek. He stepped in towards her, his other arm lowering to her waist.

“Crane… please.” Her last effort to stop him when it was already too late. She had already let him save her, let him hold her, let him see her cards laid out on the table. He looked into her eyes. 

“ ‘Please’ do or ‘please’ don’t?” he asked her with the faintest smirk and all she could think was that she had called out to him in that black lake of souls. She always called out to him, and he always heard.

And then Crane kissed Abbie, slowly, deliberately, speaking things with his tongue against hers so that her body would hear. He was holding back, she could tell—his mouth took hers patiently, careful not to scare her, knowing she could be flighty, skittish, but his hand around her waist betrayed him. He was crushing her, his hot hand latching onto her ribs to keep him in control.

The pressure made her gasp, pulling away from him, but he caught the back of her head and found his way to her lips again, pressing into her more insistently. He would be heard before she ran away from him.

But how could she run? She barely existed—all she could feel were the parts of her skin burning under his touch, her heart beating, a fire blazing through her core like whiskey. She couldn’t breathe. 

And then he tore himself away from her, released his grip. She didn’t open her eyes. Abbie took a moment to remember who and where she was, how her body worked, what she was on this earth to do. Crane took a moment to softly kiss the line of her cheekbone.

“Abbie.” She opened her eyes. He should have been there before her, but there was only a swirling darkness. She reached out to him and felt her hand hit his chest. Her fingers hooked around the open neck of his shirt. 

“Crane.” He could hear the strain in her voice and he bent to look at her closely. She blinked furiously and her eyes darted back and forth.

“Crane, I can’t see you. I can’t see anything, I can’t--” and the rest of her words were caught in a panicked sob.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the story has been clear-- it jumps around in time and references itself a lot...  
> Crane's rescue story coming up! Thanks so much for the comments and kudos, and just for reading.


	4. Hidden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crane tries to find the source of Abbie's ailment.

He had approached a pool of abandoned souls, a lake with millions of forgotten, wailing currents pleading to be still, and he dove in without hesitation, without fear, without removing his boots. 

He found her and burst out of the pool, clasping her soul to his chest. She was warm. He wanted to keep her there, pressed against him. But her soul was not his, he could not just put her in his pocket. 

He wanted nothing more than to tell her every detail, just to show her that his love for her made the path to the underworld seem a trifling, merciful distance.

Abbie had no idea. She didn’t ask how he found her because she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to hear how much he had risked for her. Had it been everything?

Now Crane looked up at Abbie from his laptop and felt how far she had pushed him away. She sat curled up on the corner of the couch, faintly rocking, blinking furiously over sightless eyes. 

Three doctors had found no discernible reason for her sudden blindness, and Abbie was angry. Her anger turned her back into a brick wall, an untouchable fortress—the defenses that had weakened with her death were back with a vengeance. She cringed whenever he neared her. She was punishing him, and he quite deserved it, the brazen cad that he was. 

But he could still feel her hot skin under his fingers, her tongue yielding to his—

Yes, he was a contemptible, shameless cad. Thankfully, he found the pertinent article. As he skimmed it, he became more and more certain his lieutenant would not like what it meant for her. 

“Tea incoming, Abbie.” Jenny walked in from the kitchen, a mug of tea and a circle of yarn in hand. She wrapped Abbie’s hand around the mug and guided it to the coffee table, then loosely wrapped the yarn around Abbie’s wrists. 

“Cat’s cradle, Abbie. Something to do.”

Abbie froze, the yarn hanging limply on her outstretched arms. 

“I haven’t played cat’s cradle—I didn’t—“

“I know.”

Jenny carefully arranged the string on Abbie’s fingers, creating geometric shapes, until Abbie took over, making the teacup, the broomstick, the witch’s hat, another broomstick—and she remembered Mama’s peaceful face and the shadowless hazy light that held her—

She stopped to wipe at a few quiet tears that had escaped her eyes. Jenny squeezed her arm, remembering a different version of their mother who had loved them just as much.

Crane found himself intruding on a moment and a memory that was not his and he averted his eyes. 

“Found anything yet, Crane?” Jenny looked at him expectantly and he cleared his throat. 

“I have. If I may—“

“On with it,” Abbie barked, the hoarseness in her voice making her seem so small that Crane fought himself not to rush to her side, a familiar repressed urge—

“Scores of Cambodians complain they are blind or suffer blurry vision although their eyes are normal--a malady some experts blame on the horrors they witnessed in the killing fields of their native land. 

“These women saw things that their minds just could not accept, so their minds simply closed down, and they refused to see anymore--refused to see any more death, any more torture, any more rape, any more starvation.”

Crane felt Abbie’s posture and breathing change from across the room. She was rigid. 

“Experts believe that the refugees suffer hysterical, psychosomatic or functional blindness, in which psychological turmoil spurs people with normal eyes to believe that they are blind or see poorly.”

Silence. He felt immensely guilty. He did not mean to accuse Abbie of secrecy and trauma in this way—he would have preferred subtlety, trust. He wished she would lean on him. He wished he deserved that. 

“I read from the Los Angeles Times publication, written on the 15th of October, 1989, by a Mr. Lee Siegel—“

“So I’ve got some kind of PTSD from hell, you’re saying.”

“I… can only imagine. Perhaps you are trying to hide something from yourself.”

Abbie’s fists clenched tighter, and Crane felt it in his chest.

“I only wish to help.”

Abbie felt cornered. He was close, but wrong. She wasn’t hiding. That was just the point. She came back to life with her heart on her sleeve, despite all the warnings hell had told her. Your love will destroy all, no room for ambiguity in death, and here she was, falling into his arms every chance she got. 

She wasn’t hiding. So she was being punished. Visited by the swirling darkness. Reminded of what hell was like. 

She stood so abruptly that her knee crashed against the coffee table. She heard Crane rise in alarm and Jenny reached out to steady her. 

“Abbie?”

“I’ll… be in my room. I need to rest.” She was croaking and fooling no one. She carefully turned, feeling and remembering her way out of the living room, up the stairs, as Crane called out to her from the landing of her house, their home, and she felt it crumbling around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to finish up this story because it seems the fountain of creativity in this glorious fandom is running dry in the weeks before 3b. Sorry it took so long.


End file.
